Comments on: Mmmm… One Star-rific!

By: Beth

Beth — Thu, 15 Dec 2011 21:17:04 +0000

I admit, I didn't finish Old Man's War, either (which I read when the owner of the bookstore where I bought Your Hate Mail Will Be Graded gushed and couldn't BE-LEEEEVE I hadn't read it. Thing is, I ADORED the "dialogs after dialogs." THERE was the humor and wonderfulness that makes me read this blog. When the war part of the war novel started, I wasn't thrilled anymore (I felt the same way about Suzanne Collins' Mockingjay, and I'm a scary, squeeing trivia-spewing fangirl for the first two books). I tried a genre I don't dig so much because of the name on the cover. I passed it on to someone who thought Your Hate Mail Will Be Graded was "a bunch of lectures and he LOVED Old Man's War. That's what makes life interesting.

By: oddlittlerants

oddlittlerants — Fri, 30 Sep 2011 16:14:07 +0000

good advice, for life. for dealing with negative people and the past. not just bad reviews. trying to find a way to deal without raving like an “insecure psychotic”. something to work on….

By: five finger kso

five finger kso — Fri, 22 Apr 2011 09:38:24 +0000

You look like you have the first 50 pages of the book in your cheeks.

By: trytr

trytr — Thu, 21 Apr 2011 07:23:28 +0000

Why do people write bad reviews?

Like others here, I tend to skim the five-star Amazon reviews because every book has its claque of supporters. The two-to-four star reviews are the ones most likely to go beyond “rox/sux” and give me an idea of whether I’d like the book.

I get something from the reviews others have written, and I want to give something back in return – which means writing reviews myself. On a more practical level, people who see thought-out reviews are more likely to post their own thought-out reviews, which improves the resources for everyone. (And maybe some of those people will warn me off a bad book I might otherwise have bought.)

If no one posts bad reviews, you end up with nothing but good reviews – which decreases the value of the reviews for potential readers.

By: Stacey

Stacey — Wed, 30 Apr 2008 04:09:35 +0000

You look like you have the first 50 pages of the book in your cheeks.

I have big cheeks, too… I’m not talking down at you.

By: John Scalzi

John Scalzi — Tue, 29 Apr 2008 15:59:47 +0000

Well, I did intentionally make myself look like ass, here, Stacey. You know. For the comic effect.

By: Stacey

Stacey — Tue, 29 Apr 2008 05:35:46 +0000

Dude, you gotta start walking to the Subway every day for lunch,,, in Gary, Indiana.

By: Rachel

Rachel — Mon, 28 Apr 2008 23:35:38 +0000

I totally WILL take up the challenge, and you, John Scalzi, are made of the awesome.

– Rachel

By: Matthew F

Matthew F — Sun, 27 Apr 2008 04:18:05 +0000

+++“I have read” =/= “I have bought”.

I have posted some scathing one-star reviews of books I got out of the library. They were so offensively bad I had to pound on them on amazon.+++

I take the point, but I do recall that one of them mentioned owning as well as reading, and another expressed regret that he wasn’t likely to meet me so he could beat the cost of four books back out of me.

By: R.W. Ridley

R.W. Ridley — Sat, 26 Apr 2008 15:28:14 +0000

BTW – Don’t know if you ever heard the segment on bad reviews on NPR. If you haven’t it is worth a listen.

The Web and the Rise of Rotten Reviews

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=9288507